Cheerful?

Cough, cough, sneeze, blow, gag, cough, cough.  Sigh.  SNEEZE!  Blow.  Yep.  I have a cold.  Not so cheerful.  So it seemed much better to get out of bed before dawn, have a cup of tea and sit at my desk, rather than lay there feeling miserable.  So....  Good morning!  :-)

Very cheering is this fun photo taken by Poyla of his "jailbirds".  I can't believe Stardust is turning four soon. How time flies.

Very cheering is this bright tote bag I whipped up.  Fun Jane Sassamann fabrics given to me by a generous friend.  :-)

For the purpose of holding the 301.  The lining is soft flannel.

I also made a little zipper bag for the small accessories, and then a larger one for the foot pedal and power cord.

Which all fits nicely in this aluminum utility case from Harbor Freight.  The case is an idea I saw on the Vintage Sewing Machines Facebook Group.  It will also fit my Featherweight.  Very cool.

Now this machine and I are just waiting, not so patiently, to go away on retreat together!

Cheerful probably isn't the right word (except for the color!)....how about contentment?  I made this dog bed and it seems to have it's fans.  The comfort loving Piglet.

Crazy Maisy.

And guess who?  

The dog bed waiting to be made I mentioned in the last post is this one.  Cute, huh?  Piglet won't have anything to do with it.

I cannot tell you what a struggle this was to put together.  Foam rubber, fat cording, stiffeners, stuffing.  Just plain odd.

Both beds are from this pattern.  Both were weird to put together.  In fact so weird the pattern is now in the recyle bin.   I tend to get stars in my eyes and purchase materials to make multiples of something that looks cute.  Soooo glad I came to my senses this time!  :-P

Since it was a rainy day yesterday and I was not cheerful company, I took the energetic Viking for a romp in the play area at the mall.  Last time we were there it was all about climbing and sliding.  This time it was all about running.  "Say GO, Nini!"  Except when he discovered he was big enough to climb up on the ink bottle.  We have also discovered pockets.  He eats with a hand in his pocket, struggles to play with at least one hand in his pocket, and seemed to think standing up there required hands in his pockets.  He was also spending quite a bit of time up there captivated by the antics of the shy little girl and mother sitting on the bench near me.  It was very cute to watch.

Looking forward to a cheerful Tuesday.  Gotta start the day thinking positive anyway.  :-)

New

New messenger bags for a dinosaur obsessed little boy....

and a Frozen obsessed Stardust.

A new immersion blender.  I can make chocolate whipped cream for my strawberries!  Who knew!!

A new wing chair for comfortable hand stitching in The Sandbox.  I do allow a few select other people to sit in it.  ;-)

A new "diaper" bag from the Takeoff Tote pattern.  Fabulous pattern!  No more diapers, but one does have to carry a certain amount of toddler stuff around.  Might as well do it in style.

Behold.  A UFO actually put together!  That's new.

Renewal.  A quilt from the 1950s saved to the best of my ability.  The least fragile of the non-shredded blocks put back together, borderd and requilted.  It is now in a place of honor over the owner's bed.

A new bed!

 New language skills.  Behold the "lellow vacaloom!"

New levels of fearlessness were displayed at the mall yesterday.

A new generation that has no knowledge of life before selfies.  So of course he insisted on a selfie with his chocolate milk.  :-)

A renewed interest in some of the old sewing machines that have somehow crept into the house when I wasn't looking.   (Believe that and I have a bridge to sell you.)  I cleaned up the Singer 301A (on the left) and plan to take it on retreat.  Messy job.  This pic was taken after I had cleaned up.  Hmmmm.

Oiled up, shined up, and ready to be used!

What new thing (or old....let's face it, the UFOs aren't going anywhere) can I accomplish today??  Oh yeah.  I have the fabric sitting over there for another dog bed.

Chatting

Piglet is well and truly part of the household now.  Even to the point of joining in Skype conversations with The Tramp.  Tee hee!

Ok Mom

Now even my mother (who lives a whole 3 miles away) is poking me about not posting.  Gak!

To give you an idea of what is going on around here, let me just say the tilers have been here all day.  Ooooooo!  Am I getting nice shiny new bathrooms?  A new powder room??  A new kitchen floor???  Nope.  Sigh.  It's all repair.

We had the evil polybutylene plumbing.  Really bad news.  After the last leak, which damaged the kitchen ceiling....now we don't....and have the corresponding holes in our walls and ceilings to prove it.  The week before Christmas found us taking down the kitchen ceiling and prepping ourselves for several days of no water.  (We had water at night thank goodness.)  The weather hasn't exactly been cooperative either.  It's been seesawing between warm and extremely wet, and COLD.  The plumbers worked hard outside trenching the front yard (in red clay mud) and replacing the water to the house, then replaced all the hot and cold water pipes, installed three dual-flush toilets, shower and bath controls, two faucets, pressure reducing valve, and hot water heater.   As it's really COLD again, it's also nice to know the feeds to the sinks are now coming up through the floors rather than being in the outside walls.  No more barking our shins on open cabinet doors on cold nights.  Yay!

So the kitchen was swathed in plastic, after which I left The Tramp in peace with his demolition and went back to The Sandbox to finish up some Christmas sewing.

Unfortunately, one of the ceiling fixtures came down with a crash in the process.

Christmas lights twinkling on the screened porch cheered us up a bit.

My poor shower!

Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!  (There is another hole just as big on the wall to the right, the back of the other shower.)  Tiles came down over the bathtub on the back side of the wall too.  From all the banging I presume.

Oh dearie dear dear.

 The downstairs powder room suffered indignities too, with a floor to ceiling hole and a chunk out of the ceiling.  And the ceiling in the garage, made necessary in part by a steel I-beam rudely getting in the way.

But all the new pipe is in and looking good.  Even better, the town inspector thought so too.  :-)

Meet the new hybrid hot water heater.  Yep. It's big.  It reminds me of the robot in Lost In Space.  "Danger!  Danger, Will Robinson!"  Me and HHWH are best buds too.  I say hello everytime I go out to the refrigerator.  :-P

So Christmas goodies were cooked in the dark.  Swiping a lamp from the living room helped quite a bit.  Maybe I should say it was "atmospheric."  :-)

And today tile was replaced.  Of course you can't match 30 year old tile.  (Surprise, surprise.)  It's an eighth of an inch smaller these days....for goodness sake.  So the tiler came up with the herringbone pattern to fill in and we think it looks very nice.  The whole shower has been acid washed and recaulked, the rusty shower door removed, grout fixed in the bad spots, and will be sealed tomorrow.  Almost like new.  Almost.

Now if we could just get rid of all the nasty wallpaper.....shudder.

As if there wasn't enough mess, I got the itch to do some shuffling in The Sandbox and The Tramp obliged once again. Isn't he a sweetie?  He put up another pegboard for me and built an insert for the top drawer of my little bureau for all the Bernina 710 feet and bobbins. He rebuilt a table and installed shelves too. :-D

ESD has been busily sewing away in New Zealand.  New hats were the project last week.  Sweet!  (I'll save all my recent sewing photos for another post.)

ED posted this photo on Facebook to show off "a boy and his dog."  Pepsi is a rescue and a new member of their household.

Which prompted me to post this photo of "a boy and his other dog."  Piglet is a new member of our household.  Isn't she a love....and she puts up with small boys too!

 Just so there is a little bit of sewing I include this photo of a quilt my bee is putting together out of our scraps.  Last week we got the finished blocks up and placed to our satisfaction on R's design wall, and divided it into quarters.  I've put the lower right quadrant together.  It's going to be fabulous.

AND....drumroll please....for 2015.  A flimsy finish.  Already!  Woot!